In Chinese
art, the term "Cynical Realism" - a name first used
in 1992 by the art critic Li Xianting (b.1949) - refers to a famous
style of contemporary art practised
in the 1990s by a group of Beijing painters, in the aftermath of the Deng
Xiaoping's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and the enforced closure earlier
that year of the "China Avant Garde" art exhibition, at the
National Gallery in Beijing. Seen as a parody of Socialist
Realism, the only form of officially approved figure
painting in China at the time, Cynical Realism has impressed Western
art collectors, although it is viewed
with ambivalence by Chinese art critics,
who resent its Western focus. Top
contemporary artists associated with the movement include: Yue
Minjun (b.1962), well-known for his "smiling" self-portraits,
like those in his "Hat" series; Fang Lijun (b.1963),
famous for his images of "bald headed young men"; and Zhang
Xiaogang (b.1958), noted for his "Bloodlines" series. These
artists are among the most successful contemporary painters in the whole
of China, and some of their works rank alongside the most
expensive paintings in today's international art market. The Cynical
Realist movement is closely related to "Political Pop" - a late-1980s
form of Chinese Pop art that questioned the
political and social assumptions of the Chinese mainland in the wake of
the Cultural Revolution (1966-70) and the death of Chairman Mao Zedong
(1893-1976).

History

Cynical Realism emerged in Beijing in the
early 90s, during the post-1989 gloom that followed the demonstrations
at Tiananmen Square. The abrupt closure of avant
garde art exhibitions, such as the "China Avant-Garde" exhibition
at the National Gallery, allied to a frustrating political climate, left
many artists fearful, causing them to go underground. There were no more
public exhibitions, no market for their painting,
and no mainstream forum in which to express themselves. But amazingly,
the lack of money and opportunity, served to sharpen their creative edge
and stimulate creative discussion. As a result, artists like Yue Minjun,
Yang Shaobin, Wang Jinsong, and Song Yonghong bonded together in groups
such as the Yuanmingyuan Artist Community and the East Village, holding
illicit art exhibitions and sharing ideas. It was in this underground
arts milieu that the highly influential critic and curator Li Xianting
- editor of Fine Art Magazine (1978-83), organizer of the "Stars
Exhibition" (1979) and editor of the authoritative China Fine Art
Newspaper (1985-89) - first came up with the name "cynical realism".
Li was a very important contact and source of knowledge, for foreign art
collectors and curators, and an equally important promoter of underground
artists. In this way he played an important role in helping to shape the
emerging Cynical Realist trend.

Sadly, the merits and aesthetics
of Cynical Realism have been somewhat sidelined by a wider controversy,
stirred up by certain Chinese intellectuals and artists, about whether
the movement has been manipulated by the West: these critics say that
Western enthusiasm for the movement is related to the latter's dissident
nature and its criticism of Chinese society. Furthermore, they say, the
vast majority of public showings of works by Cynical Realist artists were
on foreign soil. Of course, during the 1990s and 2000s, most of the buyers
of Chinese contemporary art were from the West, thus a Western "influence"
is undeniable. And, given the lack of authorized art exhibitions and contemporary
art festivals in China (the internationally acclaimed Cynical Realist
Fang Lijun was not allowed a one-man show in China until October 2006)
it is also true that most of the movement's works were exhibited abroad.
But the suggestion that some kind of malevolent Western influence is at
work, has more than a whiff of paranoia. (But see the views of younger
Chinese artists, below.) A more mature reaction is to see Cynical Realism
as an essential stage in the development of Chinese
painting, and an important contribution to post-Tiananmen Square society.

Characteristics

Broadly speaking, Cynical Realism takes
a critical look at contemporary Chinese society, but its use of humour
and satire tends to soften the criticism. Indeed, Cynical Realist painters
often adopt a self-mocking attitude. As well as borrowing stylistic elements
from the Socialist Realist movement, they have their own devices - clown-like
figures and make-up, as well as symbolism
and surrealism imagery - through which to
convey their message. One of their most powerful themes is the idea of
the "powerless individual". This is a feature of numerous paintings,
in which figures are portrayed as "helpless", "masked",
"confused" or "screaming in silent laughter". Whether
or not this was an accurate portrayal of conditions in China at the time
(1990s), it was certainly consistent with the attitude of most Westerners,
who saw China as a society in which the interests of the individual are
wholly subordinated to those of the state.

Famous
Cynical Realists

Yue Minjun (b.1962)

Trained at Hebei Normal University (1985-89)
and influenced by the work of Geng Jianyi (b.1962), a leading member of
the '85 New Wave movement, Yue Minjun's work has been exhibited at numerous
galleries in Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing. His most valuable painting
is "Gweong-Gweong" (1993), which sold at Christie's
Hong Kong in May, 2008, for $6,932,517. Perhaps the most famous member
of the group, Yue is best known for his self-portraits
in which he appears in various settings, frozen in laughter. In his popular
"Hat" series, his grinning head is depicted wearing a variety
of hats - the helmet of a British policeman, Catwoman's mask, a chef's
hat, and so on. The paintings attempt to convey the absurdity of the bureaucratic
protocols and social customs surrounding hats. On a more sinister level,
the series highlights the use of "uniform" to control the population.

Fang Lijun (b.1963)

A graduate of the prestigious Central Academy
of Fine Arts in Beijing (1985-89), Fang's paintings have been shown at
the Museum of Modern
Art in New York, the Pompidou
Centre in Paris, as well as numerous venues in Hong Kong and Beijing.
His most expensive work is "Series 2 No. 4" (1992) which was
bought at Sotheby's Hong
Kong in October, 2014, for $7,664,849. Fang is best-known for his "bald-headed"
figures. Using baldness to de-personalize the pictured individuals, and/or
to disempower them, Fang shows them in a variety of poses - standing,
swimming, yawning, smiling, and so on. The overall impression given by
Fang's figures is that they are confused or disorientated, and they are
meant to symbolize the uncertainty felt by young Chinese people after
1989. Alternatively, the confused "bald-headed" figures may
represent the artist's view of how Chinese individuals have to behave
in order to hide their real thoughts from the authorities.

Zhang Xiaogang
(b.1958)

A victim of the Chinese Cultural Revolution
- his mother and father were taken away for 3 years for re-education -
he studied at the Sichuan Academy of Fine arts (1977-82). His influences
include Gerhard Richter, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. His most expensive
painting is "Bloodline: Big Family No. 3" (1995) which sold
at Sotheby's Hong Kong in April, 2014, for $12,144,809. Zhang is best-known
for his "Bloodline" paintings ("Bloodline: the Big Family"),
a series of mostly monochromatic, stiffly-posed portraits of Chinese people,
whose faces appear calm but whose insides are churning with emotion. They
illustrate how Chinese people should protect themselves, by keeping their
feelings and experiences locked away inside them, so as to survive as
a member of China's big family.

Cynical Realism was one of the first contemporary
art movements in China to achieve an international reputation. However,
despite - or, more accurately, because of - its (ongoing) success in attracting
foreign buyers, Cynical Realism was viewed more negatively by the younger
generation of postmodernist artists,
associated with the famous art exhibition entitled "Post-sense, Sensibility,
Alien Bodies and Delusion", held in 1999 at Shaoyaoju, Beijing. Heavily
involved in conceptual art - the dominant
style of early 21st century art in China - these artists used new forms,
including performance art and installation,
along with video art, and photography,
to create a type of postmodernist art
(comprising an extreme statement of irrationality and improvisation) that
would not be "controlled" by Western buyers.